Conventionally, to synchronize the acquisitions of multiple oscilloscopes, the trigger signal is simply fanned out to all of the oscilloscopes. However, with such a configuration, the synchronization jitter between the oscilloscopes is the sum of the individual trigger jitters of the two oscilloscopes. This may be in the range of about 1-2 ps rms. Further, it is often difficult to fan out the trigger if a probe must be used to access it. In that case, a separate probe is needed for each oscilloscope, thus placing extra loading on the trigger signal which may slow down the trigger signal and cause even more trigger jitter or even impact the operation of the device under test.
Additionally, the time-bases of the multiple oscilloscopes could be phase locked so that the waveform records would remain synchronized for a longer time period after the trigger.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other limitations in the prior art.